We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lauren & Jesse Stuart a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren & Jesse, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?

We started Wandering Stu’s as a way to keep our family updated on our travels abroad. We love photography and writing so it was a little bit of a no brainer and an easy way to keep folks back home in the loop.

We did not take a second to think, “hey, we could actually make a business out of this one day.” Instead, we just dove right in. It wasn’t until later, it dawned on us, all those travel guides we wrote, we could actually use those to create a business. Except, they we’re poorly written, not SEO optimized, and just needed a lot of work.

We spent time learning SEO, search structures, and a handful of other things we needed to learn in order to build a foundation to optimize our passions, travel writing and photography.

If we could go back in time, we’d tell ourselves to not sell yourselves short! Think through things a little further and really believe anything is possible, even if you don’t know how to do it yet.

Lauren & Jesse, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We’re Lauren & Jesse Stuart aka The Stu’s from Wandering Stus! An adventure travel couple who quit our jobs to traverse and backpack across the countries of Southeast Asia and Nepal. From our backpacking Southeast Asia trips to camper trips across the United States, and other must see places throughout the world, we’re here to bring you epic itineraries and your everyday “how to’s” to help you plan your biggest or smallest adventures, regardless of where you roam.

Our goal is simple, to show you how wonderfully amazing travel is and above all to inspire you to go to those faraway places you’ve been dreaming of. Follow along as we tell our stories of places we have been and furthermore where we are going next!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Imposter syndrome. It’s a real thing. And we’d like to say we totally unlearned it, but we’d be lying. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “imposter syndrome”, it’s essentially self doubt. You doubt your ability, skills, and talents thinking everyone knows more than you or is more qualified than you.

Believing in yourself and celebrating all that you accomplished and overcome instead of focusing on where you still need to be and want to be is a focal point in our business. Are where we want to be? Nope. But sheesh, look at all we’ve accomplished and grew. That’s pretty special and impressive, and something an imposter could- not have done :)

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help or invest in yourself. Be it couching, or paying for a class to help you really expand upon or learn a new skill. We can’t tell you how many wasted hours we let happen by trying to do it all ourselves, instead of just asking for help, or investing in a class or couch.

Everyone needs a mentor or guiding light. Once we finally realized “we need help”, it was one of the best decisions we made. We took some classes, and if anything, it helped validate the skills we learned already and gave us new perspectives and insights on things we could be doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wanderingstus.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderingstus
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderingstus/

Image Credits
Lauren & Jesse Stuart, Wandering Stus